Rule Forty Two: The Self-Aggrandizing Website of Gavin Edwards

I knew Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were lovers–but somebody told me she also had a fling with John Lennon! Is that true?

With more caffeine, it might have been. On consecutive nights circa 1964, both Baez and the Beatles performed at the Red Rocks ampitheater in Denver, Colorado. Baez had finished her tour, so when the Beatles invited her to tag along with them, she joined their entourage for a few concerts. “I saw all the inner workings: how you climb into Volkswagen buses and then send the limousine out to be beaten to death by loving fans,” she said. After the tour, the Beatles ended up in a large mansion in LA. “They’ve sent their people out to bring in groupies so they can pick who they’re gonna, you know, hang out with. And these poor girls, just sitting downstairs waiting to see whether they’re gonna be picked by somebody–they don’t talk, they don’t even knit.” There weren’t enough bedrooms for everybody, so Lennon told Baez she could stay in his room.

“So I went to sleep and he came in, in the middle of the night,” Baez said. “And I think he felt compelled — ‘Well, I’ve asked her and she is a star and oh, dear’–and he started coming on to me, very unenthusiastically. I said, ‘John, you know, I’m probably as tired as you are, and I don’t want you to feel you have to perform on my behalf.’ And he says, [in Liverpudlian accent] ‘Oh, luvly! I mean, what a relief! Because you see, well, you might say I’ve already been fooked downstairs.’ So we had a good laugh and went to sleep.”

(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)